Friday, October 30, 2009

30 foot asteroid explodes like 3 Hiroshimas

Luckily for Indonesia last October 8th, it was over ten miles in the sky. But in the video it looks a lot closer! Meanwhile one of many articles reveals: "NASA calculated that to spot the asteroids as required by law would mean spending about $800 million between now and 2020, either with a new ground-based telescope or a space observation system, Johnson said. If NASA got only $300 million, it could find most asteroids bigger than 1,000 feet across, he said."

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

BIG Tea Party - Medical shortages another good reason...

September 12 Washington DC Tea Party was yet another demonstration I missed. I kept hearing how big it was and saw one somewhat impressive photo. Then recently discovered this site and three very impressive photos. Assuming they aren't claiming some big gay or women's right's rally was theirs, very impressive!

Most of these people are against the laws and taxes that are destroying the economy and crushing our freedoms. Unfortunately, too many still support spending a trillion dollars a year to keep the rest of the world under control, what with those 800 foreign bases, and those two big wars in the Middle East. (Some even criticize Obama for the little he is doing to try to stop Israel from attacking Iran and starting a truly catastrophic war.) But more and more of them are going LIBERTARIAN and are able and willing to admit it's time to retrench big military as well as big government because...

THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT IS BROKE - and so are most of its people.

The nation is so broke that not only do we not produce most of the medicines and medical supplies we need in this country, but have to import them - and pretty soon no one's going to take the dollar from a bankrupt nation. China isn't going to pay for our wars - AND divert medical supplies from its 1.3 billion hard working/hard saving people to our 300 million increasingly unemployed, retired and indebted ones. One of several reasons medical supplies, vaccines and tamiflu are in short supply.

Of course, the U.S. government owns one third of the land in the country and we can always sell that off... (Here's the Fed's view on it all. Here's Cato Institute's reply. And Ron Paul's.)

Anyhooo- as someone who had the flu twice in 2007-2008, plus a couple bad colds directly after, I got a flu shot last fall and it worked. No flu or colds in 2008-2009. This year, despite trying at CVS and the doctors, I'm very frustrated I still can't get a regular flu shot. (I don't intend to get the swine flu shot but feel sorry for those who want it and can't get it - assuming it doesn't turn out to be a killer toxin after all!)

I DO have a couple masks I got from somewhere, something else also in shortage. And lots of Kefiyah's to cover my face, in case I have to go out in public during flu season. Now if I can just get my roommate to cover his face when he sneezes and wash his hands when he walks in the door. Anyway, click on photo below to get to dramatic Youtube video.

Monday, October 19, 2009

MARIJUANA! A tiny big more legal....


Yoo Ha! President Obama does one tiny little bit towards legalizing the most wonderful medicinal on the planet: Obama administration won't prosecute where medical marijuana is legal.

Here's a nice NORML map of status in different states.

Oh, my arthritis! Oh, my aching back! I need my medicine and I need it now!!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Iranians Love U.S. Secessionists

Iranians Love U.S. Secessionists because they seek to undermine the "Great Satan" (or "Evil Empire")... and yet Imperial U.S./Israel war on Iran and the ensuing economic fiasco, civil liberties abuses and even nuclear war are the things most likely to turn tens of millions of Americans INTO secessionists and break up the U.S. Ironic, eh??

Secession Is the Future

Kirkpatrick Sale Talks To Iranians About the Death of Empires

The following interview with Middlebury Institute director Kirkpatrick Sale appeared in the Kayhan International newspaper of Tehran, Iran on July 21, 2009, and in the Persian language Kayhan News the same day. The interviewer was Seyed Yasser Jebraily.

You have argued that the major theme of contemporary history is the break-up of great empires. Would you elaborate on this and also evaluate the current status of U.S. Empire, I mean its failures and successes?
(see link for rest)

American secessionist leader: US could break up fast

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 (Interview with) Professor Thomas Naylor of the Second Vermont Republic. The following is the transcript of a Press TV recent interview with emeritus professor of economics at Duke University, author and founder of the Second Vermont Republic movement Thomas Naylor.

Press TV: First of all when does the secessionist movements date back to and why is the United States facing a growing number of secessionists today?

Prof. Naylor: The legacy of secession goes all the way back to our inception in 1776. The United States was created by secession from England.

Press TV: Professor, what is the movement fighting for?
(see link for rest)

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Nobel Peace Prize for President Who Will NOT Meet with Peace Activists

My pre-Nobel Prize post about the peace protest against Obama failed to mention that one demand was that Obama meet with peace protesters. As I wrote in reply to a Cindy Sheehan article on the topic: Will he remain the Nobel Peace Prize winner who REFUSES to meet with peace activists?? Will he promise to do everything to prevent war against Iran, including telling Israel he will not support any Israeli attack and might even cut off the aid?? Inquiring peace activists want to know. (Stole the graphic from that site, too.)

Update: Another good one from Paul Craig Roberts: Warmonger Wins Peace Prize. Ron Paul's Opinion below:

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Finally - civil disobedience against Obama...

Same group of protesters during Clinton's bombing of Serbia in 1999

Sure, it was only the usual suspects protesting in front of the White House complaining about Iraq and Afghanistan, with no mention of the coming holocaust against Iran, but it was a protest, including civil disobedience sit downs and arrests, against Obama's continuation of most of Bush's pro-war policies. (Unfortunately, some tried to turn off most Americans by chanting for socialized medicine!) Dozens were arrested, including Cindy Sheehan.

Report from David Swanson:

We moved down the street and the truck came too. But we made a lot more noise. Prisoners in orange from Witness Against Torture chained themselves to the White House fence. So did Cindy Sheehan whose son died in Iraq. Veterans for Peace displayed US, Afghan, and Iraqi coffins and read the names of the dead and shouted: "Mourn the dead! Heal the wounded! End the wars!" The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, the World Can't Wait, and lots of other groups joined in. Many of us donned black shirts, white placards with the names of dead troops or civilians, and white masks: the March of the Dead. We marched on the sidewalk in front of the White House in silence.

Then the police horses came at us. The police tried to drive us into the street with their horses, but we lay down on the sidewalk, and they didn't trample us. Instead they put police tape around a huge area, moved everyone else out of it, gave three warnings, and began arresting people. We lay on the sidewalk for approximately two hours, rode with lights and sirens blaring in an escorted caravan of vans and buses to the jail, and were out within an hour with tickets to pay $100 fines or challenge in court. The crime? Exercising free speech in a group of more than 25 people. Seriously.

Plus Swanson includes text of a Peace Action Press release: Twenty-three non-violent peace activists calling for an end to the US war in Afghanistan were violently pushed and dragged away from a White House gate by Secret Service officers this afternoon...After a non-violent “die-in” at the White House gate, the peace activists waited for over three hours while various police departments, including the Washington, DC Metro Police, Park Police and Secret Service, gave conflicting stories about whether the activists would be arrested or not, the group’s request to meet with someone from the Administration having been summarily rebuffed by White House guards. Suddenly, with no warning and with dozens of other police officers watching, a group of about a dozen Secret Service officers swooped in to push and drag the protesters, who included a number of retirees, away from the White House gate and outside a police perimeter that had been established in the normally public area in front of the White House....“Clearly, the Obama Administration, which has increased the violence in Afghanistan with its escalation of troops earlier this year, would rather have Secret Service thugs rough up peace activists than to engage in a dialogue with us about Afghanistan,” said [ Kevin Martin, Executive Director of Peace ActionMartin. Paul Kawika Martin (no relation), Peace Action’s Policy Director, had just returned from a citizens’ peacemaker delegation to Afghanistan organized by the peace group Code Pink. “But we will not be deterred, and the American people have turned decidedly against this war. We call on Obama to meet with us to discuss Afghanistan and apologize for the brutality of the White House police force, and to begin bringing US troops home so the people of Afghanistan can resolve their country’s problems.”

Friday, October 02, 2009

Happy Birthday Gandhi-ji!!

Even Google says so. Some favorite Gandhi quotes below.
GANDHI ON SOUL
Desire for enjoyment creates bodies for the soul...The soul that is hidden beneath this earthly crust is one and the same for all men and women belonging to all climes. There is a real and substantial unity in all the variety we see around us...The force of spirit is ever progressive and endless...

GANDHI ON TRUTH
Truth alone will endure; all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time....What may appear as truth to one person will often appear as untruth to another person. But that need not worry the seeker....Truth and untruth often co-exist; good and evil often are found together....Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it....


GANDHI ON SATYAGRAHA (TRUTH-FORCE)
Satyagraha is a relentless search for truth and a determination to search truth....Satyagraha is an attribute of the spirit within....Satyagraha has been designed as an effective substitute for violence.... Satyagraha is a process of educating public opinion, such that it covers all the elements of the society and makes itself irresistible....The fight of Satyagraha is for the strong in spirit, not the doubter or the timid. Satyagraha teaches us the art of living as well as dying....Satyagraha, of which civil-resistance is but a part, is to me the universal law of life....Satyagraha can rid society of all evils, political, economic, and moral...A genuine Satyagraha should never excite contempt in the opponent even when it fails to command regard or respect....

GANDHI ON FREEDOM
The spirit of political and international liberty is universal and, it may even be said, instinctive...The attainment of freedom, whether for a man, a nation or the world, must be in exact proportion to the attainment of non-violence by each...There is no such thing as slow freedom. Til we are fully free we are all slaves...I want freedom for the full expression of my personality. I must be free to build a staircase to Sirius if I want to...No action which is not voluntary can be called moral.

GANDHI ON GOVERNMENT
I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress...Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest....We find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day be the mass of people acting as if by instinct....If they were instinctively violent the world would end in no time...It is when the mass mind is unnaturally influenced by wicked men that the mass of mankind commit violence.

GANDHI ON NON-VIOLENT GOVERNMENT
Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by fear of punishment and the other by arts of love. Power based on love is thousand times more effective and permanent than power derived from fear of punishment....
When a respectable minority objects to any rule of conduct, it would be dignified of the majority to yield...No organization can run smoothly when it is divided into two camps, each growling at each other and each determined to have its own way by hook or by crook...


GANDHI ON NON-VIOLENT ECONOMICS
Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity... Economic equality is the master key to non-violent independence...A non-violent system of government is impossible as long as the wide gulf between the rich and the hungry millions persists....A violent and bloody revolution is a certainty one day unless there is a voluntary abdication of riches and the power riches give and a sharing of them for the public good....All have not the same capacity...I would not cramp talent...I want to bring about an equalization of status....

More at WhatWouldGandhiDo.net